No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco MDS Series vs Dell PowerStore comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco MDS Series
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
4th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
188
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (2nd), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Enterprise SAN category, the mindshare of Cisco MDS Series is 9.0%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 17.3%, down from 31.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise SAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerStore17.3%
Cisco MDS Series9.0%
Other73.7%
Enterprise SAN
 

Featured Reviews

OğuzKalaycı - PeerSpot reviewer
system engineer at Yaşar Holding
Ensures consistent availability during updates and integrates seamlessly
I am using Cisco MDS in SAN environments for storage connections and server connections The product is very stable and performs well. During the update periods, the devices do not need to reload, ensuring constant availability. It is easy to set up and use. I do not have a central management…
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The features I found most valuable are the ease of deployment, it's easy to upgrade, easy to configure and easy to administer. There is no need for vendor professional services which saves project cost. The usage of WebUI for all primary features like hostname, IP address, SNMP traps, zone sets, addition and deletion of zone members or zone sets, backup of switch DB is very simple."
"SAN switches in Cisco MDS Series are a valuable feature of the solution for our company."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the devices, databases, and zoning."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the devices, databases, and zoning."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco MDS Series is its reliability, support, and scalability."
"This solution is required for any type of IT infrastructure for Storage Networking and provides high availability for storage service."
"The product is very stable and performs well."
"It enables us to integrate and load balance between multiple layer one fiber vendor links, which is very useful."
"I have found that Dell PowerStore scales with my organization."
"The solution is extremely stable."
"My company found the tool to be really easy to use, expand, and manage."
"The platform's reliability and built-in replication between disk systems have made our customers happy. It has worked consistently well over the years."
"PowerStore's compression ratio is a valuable feature for our VMs because it gives us a lot back."
"It's unified storage, so it can cover file, SAN, and block both. It's good storage; it gives good IOPS and less latency."
"Deduplication and compression perform exceptionally well, especially on Dell PowerStore."
"Dell PowerStore is GUI-based applications storage, it is easy to use and understand, making storage management tasks such as provisioning and reclaim activity quite manageable."
 

Cons

"Data Center Network Manager is good but it is not free and requires purchasing a separate license."
"Cisco MDS Series could improve by adding more gigahertz. However, they are doing this over time."
"Cisco MDS Series can improve by having API functionality for automation and programming."
"The solution's management interface and GUI need improvement."
"The GUI client is Java-based and we know that Java is not secure, so everyone disables it."
"The licensing model could be less complicated."
"I do not have a central management software to manage these products due to the licensing cost. It would be beneficial to have central management software for easier handling."
"I do not have a central management software to manage these products due to the licensing cost."
"I wish there were more options to fine-tune things. Some of the information requires deeper investigation to get data efficiency per data store."
"The design needs to be something similar to Pure Storage. It would be beneficial if there are different color or lighting options for different product casings."
"The design needs to be something similar to Pure Storage. It would be beneficial if there are different color or lighting options for different product casings. Different colors are helpful when working in the data center server room."
"When we go to buy or populate more drives in the storage array, they're so expensive. If they could lower the cost for components, we would definitely expand them more and be more inclined to buy more storage units, but it's currently a price crunch for us."
"Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new."
"If I could improve the product in any way, I would add features that make it look nicer compared to the DisplayPort."
"The support team doesn't always provide adequate assistance. So, there is room for improvement in the support."
"It would be helpful for us to have support for the S3 protocol because our main competitor has the S3 protocol in their system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the Cisco MDS Series is high."
"Pricing cannot be considered an advantageous trait of the solution since it is expensive. I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"It's perpetual licensing and maintenance is a recurrent cost."
"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."
"There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."
"The pricing rates at seven out of ten as it is considered overpriced. Entry-level models are reasonably priced, starting around $30,000 for a base model with 6 drives. However, upgrades become costly - adding 6 additional drives can cost another $30,000."
"If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."
"Dell PowerStore charges for the hardware warranty every three years. The price will depend on the storage model or how much hardware it has."
"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."
"PowerStore's pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise SAN solutions are best for your needs.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business61
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco MDS Series?
The pricing could be improved as the solution is very expensive. I am on a yearly payment basis.
What needs improvement with Cisco MDS Series?
I do not have a central management software to manage these products due to the licensing cost. It would be beneficial to have central management software for easier handling.
What is your primary use case for Cisco MDS Series?
I am using Cisco MDS in SAN environments for storage connections and server connections.
What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco MDS 9100, Cisco MDS 9222i, Cisco MDS 9700
PowerStore
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Rugby League
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco MDS Series vs. Dell PowerStore and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.